


a thousand cuts

by lamprophony



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Demon Blood, Gladiator Dean Winchester, Gladiator Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Incest, Kinda, M/M, Non-Con/Rape Outside of Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Violence, Wrongful Imprisonment, though with this pairing i guess that's a given lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:47:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28541283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamprophony/pseuds/lamprophony
Summary: Sam thinks about how this is Dean at his most familiar, now; Dean, covered in blood splatter and grime, ruthlessly cutting open some monster, silver blade in hand— that's the image that pops into his head when he thinks of his brother. He doesn't know when his mental image of Dean shifted, when it went fromDean-impala-dadrock-hometothis, Dean beaten and bloody with Sam desperately trying to put him back together.aka: Sam and Dean are captured and forced to fight supernatural creatures for entertainment.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 15x10 where Dean gets his ass beat by the giant vamp. They had me at _monster fight club_ , hell yeah. 
> 
> In my mind this is set sometime after they find the Men of Letters bunker, so Season 6ish? I can't tell you anything else, because canon is just a suggestion and I hate timelines.
> 
> Concrit is welcome and encouraged!

"Jesus Christ," Sam mutters, staring at the gory mess of Dean's lower leg.

"How's it look, Sammy?" Dean's not even looking at Sam, staring blank and glassy-eyed at the rough-hewn stone ceiling. He grins faintly, white teeth gleaming dully in the dim light, flecks of blood in his mouth and across his face. Sam thinks about how this is Dean at his most familiar, now; Dean, covered in blood splatter and grime, ruthlessly cutting open some monster, silver blade in hand— that's the image that pops into his head when he thinks of his brother. He doesn't know when his mental image of Dean shifted, when it went from _Dean-impala-dadrock-home_ to _this_ , Dean beaten up and bloodied with Sam desperately trying to put him back together.

"It looks fucking shitty," Sam says. "Don't move, okay?"

"I'd kill for a fucking beer right now," Dean says. "Fuck, anything alcoholic. I'd even drink one of those girly drinks you like. A goddamn martini, even."

"I never drank martinis," Sam says absently as he sorts through their makeshift emergency kit. They don't have much, just what Sam could scrounge up from what little was given to them by the guards. Some thread, some wire, rags from the thin blankets, a set of matchsticks. The cuts on Dean's leg are jagged, skin ruined and split open wide, but they aren't as deep as Sam had originally feared. A few stitches will help pull the gaping edges of the wound together, but he can wrap the rest of it.

But there is nothing to sterilize the wound with. Sam might be stitching bacteria and disease into the wound, and Dean will die.

"Yeah, too posh," Dean says. "Cocktails, then. I'm gonna be honest, I never minded a good sex on the beach. Real hit with the ladies."

Dean will die from blood loss now or infection later. Sam doesn't have a choice.

"Nah, you gotta try an old fashioned," Sam says. He lights one of the precious matches and runs the makeshift wire needle along the flame.

"Ahh, a bourbon man." Dean turns his face towards Sam and grins, skin stretching thin over his gaunt face.

"I'm gonna start now," Sam warns. He hands Dean a thick wad of rolled-up cloth. Dean grimaces but bites down obligingly.

Stitching a wound is like riding a bike, for Sam; it's his earliest memory, watching Dean painstakingly tend to a wound on Dad's back, Dean threading the needle and letting Sam draw the first stitch. The way the needle punctures the skin, the soft tug as the thread pulls the edges of the wound together. Dean's whole body is covered in scars, now, in a way it hadn't been even after years of hunting the supernatural. Sam desperately hopes this will just be another ugly mark marring Dean's body, but he can't entirely push away the sense of dread that this wound is toxic, that it marks the beginning of the end. He wraps it quickly as he can, pats Dean's shoulder to let him know it's over.

Dean spits out the cloth with a groan. "Feeling better already," he says. "We don't have anything to eat, do we?" At Sam's look, he adds, "of course not, that'd just be too easy."

Sam packs away the emergency kit and puts it back in its hiding spot behind a loose flagstone. He sits next to Dean, maneuvers them so Dean's head is resting on his thigh.

"Aw Sammy, you should have told me you wanted a hug," Dean mumbles. He's so tired he can barely get the words out, heart clearly not in it.

"Just shut up and go to sleep, Dean," Sam says. He runs his fingers through Dean's hair, ignores how they get caught on sticky dried blood and guts. None of it is Deans, and that's all that matters.

~~~

Dean twirls the silver blade in his hand, absurdly comforted by the weight and leather grip of the weapon. His eyes scan the pit, cataloging the monster in front of him. Just one wendigo today, pale and weak; it shouldn't be much of a challenge. 

It had infuriated him at first, being schlepped from one cage to another, the cell to the pit and back again. Shoved into the ring with nothing but a silver blade for protection, to face whatever godforsaken monster their captors had gotten their hands on. Wendigos, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters; they all died by Dean's hand, one way or another. 

Of course, that had been in the beginning, when escape had felt inevitable. As if this captivity was just a temporary misfortune, one more thing to throw in the Fucked Up Shit column of their lives. They'd persevere, they'd escape and _move on_ , just as they always did. All they had to do was wait for the right moment; eventually, their captors would slip. Friends would arrive. Dean wasn't a huge fan of playing the damsel in distress, but at this point he couldn't care less. He'd happily play the role of the princess, let Castiel carry him out bridal-style, as long as it meant getting _out_ of this godforsaken place.

Eventually, their sense of certainty began to dwindle. Without so much as a window to the outside world, it was almost impossible to keep track of how long they've been imprisoned. They could be anywhere on earth or in the cosmos, they could be in fucking Antartica or a cell in Germany, and they wouldn't know the difference. 

It may have infuriated him at first, but now the pit serves as a welcome relief. In the cavernous space of the arena, Dean can finally _breathe_. It's huge, about half the size of a football field, and deeply set into the ground, huge stone walls towering around him. Four floodlights are spaced out evenly around the perimeter, highlighting the dirt-packed floor. 

With the floodlights beating down upon him, it's impossible to see past the 15-foot walls. But Dean can easily imagine the elevated stands that must surround him, can hear the excited chatter of hundreds of people clustered around him and staring, ready to see a show.

It stung, at first. Like Dean was somebody's dancing monkey, bleeding for their entertainment. 

Now, though. Now it feels like _revenge_. The chance to make something bleed, to make something pay for his continued, meaningless imprisonment. 

Dean grins at the beast in front of him. The wendigo looks almost ridiculous—it was never meant to be seen in this type of harsh lighting, warped body long and pale. He thinks of the hunt in Blackwater, the way the beast moved, quiet and fast through the forest.

"C'mon, you ugly fuck," Dean jeers. It tilts its head like a curious dog.

It springs, almost too fast to track. Dean spins in the air, barely avoiding the slicing claws.

He waits for his moment— _now_ —and slashes out with his dagger, one smooth movement. The wendigo screeches, ear-piercing and angry, as black blood seeps from the wound across its ribcage. 

The fight is repetitive, the monotony of it all almost soothing. They dance, Dean bobbing and weaving across the hard-packed dirt floor, until the wendigo is covered in slicing wounds, all over its long arms and body. 

_Death by a thousand cuts_ , Dean thinks, almost pitying the beast. 

The wendigo staggers, falls to its knees, spiderly limbs tangling in on itself. The blade bites deep into the flesh of the beast's neck, almost entirely severing the head from the body. Blood gushes over Dean's hands, sprays into his face. 

Dean drops the weapon and waits for the guards to collect him. 

~~~ 

Sam had hoped… well. Sam had hoped for a lot of things, throughout his life. He'd hoped for a world free from hunting, for college, for a normal life and kids. In the light of their current situation—his whole world reduced to the cell and the ring, to Before and After—his strongly held ambitions seem both foolish and deluded. He doesn't have the energy to think of anything but their next meal, the vain hope that Dean will live to see another day.

That last one is looking less and less likely, now. Dean's leg is inflamed and angry, a milky yellow exudate seeping from the wound. Sam cradles Dean's head in his lap and gently pushes the hair off Dean's face. Dean's eyes are muddy with confusion, face flushed and hot to the touch.

The door rattles. A burly guard is roughly shoving food through the slot. He doesn't bother to watch as the tray falls to the floor, bowls splattering unidentifiable contents over the flagstones. 

"Wait," Sam says. "Wait, please." The guard doesn't so much as twitch, just continues his plodding walk down the hallway.

Helplessness tightens Sam's chest, making him breathless. His eyes are gritty with sleeplessness, head swimming with exhaustion and panic. His body tingles with pent-up emotion; he wants to scream, to cry, to give up and lie down, to pretend he is anywhere else but here. 

Sam does none of these things. He takes in a shaky breath, crawls over and picks up what remains of their lunch. One bowl is unharmed, sitting neatly on the floor. He picks up the second overturned bowl, scoops the gruel from the floor with his fingers and deposits it back into the plate.

Sam manages to wrangle Dean into a sitting position even as Dean groans in discomfort. "Sorry, sorry," Sam whispers. "You have to eat, Dean." Dean struggles to eat a few bites, coughing and turning his head away from Sam's hand like a stubborn child. What Dean really needs is water—or even better, antibiotics—but this is all he has.

Exhausted, he eats the second bowl and leans up against the wall, Dean pulled close. He lets his eyes close, prays for the millionth time. _Cas, please,_ please, _if you can hear me—_

When he opens his eyes, it's to the rattling of the cell door again. Again?

Sam turns his head to see two guards standing outside his cell. They're opening the door, and he feels fear, sickly-sweet, churning in his stomach. It's too early, this isn't normal, this isn't _routine_. Sam tries to pull Dean's limp, sweat-slick body closer to him, but it's no use. They force Sam's hands behind him and he feels cold steel encircle his wrists. "Careful," one of them says. "He's stronger than he looks."

The second guard—the burly one from before, Sam notes—throws Dean over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

Suddenly, Sam thinks—he _knows_ —if they take Dean, he'll never see him again. It'll just be Sam, alone, rotting away in this godforsaken cell until he dies or loses his mind.

"Please," Sam says. His voice cracks, humiliating. "Please, he needs help."

"Who doesn't," the short guard quips.

"His wound, it's infected," Sam continues doggedly. "Please, I'll do anything." He hates himself a little bit for groveling. But what else is there to do? Fighting the guards won't save Dean.

"Hmm," the guard says. He turns and brushes Sam's hair out his eyes, eyebrow twitching. "Anything, huh?"

Sam blinks, nods. He's so, so tired.

The short guard swaggers forward, smug arrogance coming off him in waves. He unbuckles his belt and pulls his half-hard cock out of his zipper.

The burly guard sighs in annoyance, roughly puts Dean back on the ground. "Careful, Mac. He'll bite your dick off."

"No he won't," the guard croons. "Will you, buddy?" He winks down at Sam, leans in close to whisper in his ear. "He knows what we'll do to his brother if he does."

The man's fingers taste of dirt and salt when he shoves them in Sam's mouth. Sam shudders, nods around the intrusion.

He's rough, but Sam expected that. The man's fingers twist in Sam's hair, forcing his head down on his dick and holding him there. Fire burns Sam's scalp and bile rises in his throat as the head of the man's dick bumps his soft palate, cutting off his air. Sam forces himself to swallow compulsively, tries to relax his body and let the man do what he wants. He doesn't want to give him a reason to renege on their deal.

It feels like hours but it can't be more than a few minutes before the man finishes. "Swallow," he says. Sam does, bitter taste of semen coating the inside of his mouth. Sam hangs his head a little, panting, trying to get back his breath.

The burly guard hoists Dean back on his shoulder.

"What are you doing," Sam says, too late. "No, wait, we had a fucking deal—"

"Sorry, bud," the short guard says cheerfully, tucking his dick back into his pants. "Bossman wants your brother. None of us call the shots." The burly guard snorts, shakes his head good-naturedly, rolling his eyes like his buddy pulled an especially good prank.

Rage surges in Sam's body like a physical thing, giving him new life. He doesn't have his hands, tied behind his back as they are, but by no means does that make him helpless. He lunges forward and slams his forehead into the short guard like a battering ram, feels the satisfying _crunch_ of the guy's nose. Sam's knee shoves into the man's gut as he doubles over, blood streaming down his face and into his mouth. They tumble to the floor, Sam landing on top with his thighs tightly bracketing the man's waist, pinning him in place. 

Blood trickles down Sam's face, dripping on the other man and making his vision red and hazy. He can't strangle him with his hands the way he wants so he _bites_ , tears into the flesh of the man's neck as he screams— 

Sam has a vague awareness of other guards thundering down the hall, but he's too focused on making this man hurt to care. The cell is a cacophony of sounds, men yelling incomprehensible commands overlaid by an animalistic, blood-curling scream. _Maybe from the striga a cell over_ , he thinks crazily, before he realizes the sound is coming from his own throat. Rough hands grab Sam's hair, his neck, his arms, dragging him away from the huddled figure of the short guard.

Someone throws a hood over his head. They drag him down the hallway and Sam—because he hasn't learned his lesson yet, has always been too pushy, too arrogant, never knows when to let go—Sam hopes, futile and willful, that this time they'll just kill them both.


	2. Chapter 2

The room they bring him to stinks of magic, heavy and thick in the air. After years of hunting and dealing with witches, it's a familiar smell, bones and blood and old magic floating in the air; a strange aroma layered in on itself that only accumulates after years and years of witchcraft.

Hooded and bound, the events that occur feel splintered, fragmented. He's tightly bound to a chair, feels the rough grain under his fingertips. Light leaks through the threads of the hood, and he can sense figures moving around him, silent but for the sounds of their breaths. Glass clinks behind him, causing him to jerk in tense anticipation.

A hand wrapping around his wrist, pressing it firmly to the arm of the chair. The all-too-familiar sensation of a needle sliding into his vein. Sam takes in a gasping breath, the damp fabric of the hood pressing close to his mouth on every inhale.

"No," he says, faint. His eyes roll backwards as the power rushes through him.

He doesn't know how many times they pump him with syringes full of demon blood. He passes out at some point, brain fuzzy and heart pounding in his chest, mouth tasting thick and foul. 

When he wakes up, he is back in the cell. Blood and something else is smeared on the stone floor, a reminder of his nightmarish encounter with the guard. The bowls of gruel sit in the corner, empty. 

Sam raises a shaky hand, pulls the power of the thrumming demon blood to the surface, and smashes the bowls against the cell wall. Wood splinters and gruel fly everywhere. 

He thinks, _maybe_ , and turns toward the door. Nothing. He steps closer, and immediately understands; the cell bars are silver-plated, complicated latin wards etched into the surface. 

Sam stumbles back until his back hits the wall, slides down to the floor. He closes his eyes and pretends he is anywhere else. 

~~~

It's cheating, almost.

It doesn't matter who—or more accurately, _what_ —they put against him. Sam snaps necks with a single twitch of his fingers, sends bodies flying against the walls of the pit with barely a glance. Tainted blood thrums through his veins, barely-restrained power buzzing at his fingertips.

At first, he tries to use it against the guards. The short guard is nowhere to be seen (Sam wonders, idly, if he'd managed to sever the man's carotid) but there are plenty of men to choose from. He looks at a pale, blue-eyed guard hovering in the background and pictures his head splitting open like a grape.

Sudden, searing pain emanates from his throat. Sam gasps for air, hands shooting up to scrabble at his neck. There's some sort of metal band around his neck, burning red-hot to the touch and blistering his skin. No matter who he focuses on, the results are always the same; the crackle of burning skin, the smell of burnt hair, and an all-encompassing pain that stops his magic dead. 

He tries using the creatures, next. Picks up a werewolf with his mind and throws him as high as he can, flailing body soaring above the 15-foot walls and into the stands concealed above. There's a loud _crunch_ accompanied by barely perceptible murmuring from the crowd, and the werewolf's body lands heavily in the dirt, mangled and still.

Guards pour into the area, drag him back into his empty cell. They withhold food for a few days, maybe more; time is meaningless here. Eventually, he finds himself back in the pit, as if nothing had happened at all. 

Finally, he just… stops. Sits in the middle of the pit, eyes closed in concentration. He wraps the demon's magic around him like a shimmery bubble, protecting himself from the snarling creatures in the pit. They want a _show_ ; Sam's not going to give it to them. Half-crazed and enraged, the banshee slams into the magical barrier and bounces off, harmlessly, causing waves to spread across the surface of the sphere like a stone dropped in a pond. Still, it holds; for the first time in months, Sam feels at peace, the sounds of the crowd and the snarling monsters dwindling to almost nothing.

"You shouldn't have done that," the burly guard tells him when he's escorted back to his empty cell. Sam looks at him with hate-filled eyes and says nothing. There isn't anything they can do to him worse than what they've already done. 

~~~

Sam watches a spider dance gracefully between the bars of his cell. A small, wiggling fly is trapped in her web, becoming more entangled as it struggles to escape. Absurdly, he feels a moment of kinship for the fly, and he almost laughs.

Footsteps echo down the hall. Sam's eyes flick from the spiderweb to the door of his cell, almost bored. Before, they would only ever bring two guards at a time; now there are five, each looking edgier and more tightly-wound than the last. The very last guard has a figure slumped over his shoulder.

Sam inhales a quick breath. _Dean._

"Don't move," the guard growls. Sam couldn't move if he wanted to, frozen, staring at Dean's limp hand over the guard's shoulder. Dean's dumped just inside the door, a ragged bloody heap.

"Dean," Sam says, crawls over as quickly as he can. He hoists Dean up so his body is resting against his chest. Dean's body is covered in shallow, surgical slices, like someone has taken a scalpel to his skin. He runs a hand down Dean's scarred chest, lightly tracing the edges of the fresh wounds. 

Dean's leg is the only part of his body that looks whole. It's untouched aside for the raised and jagged scar forming across his thigh, pink and new. 

"They healed you," Sam says, growing horror building in his chest. "They _healed you_." What that it, this whole time? 

Dean catches Sam's hand, smiles weakly. "Hey," he says. His mouth sounds cracked and dry. 

"I didn't know," Sam says, voice low and miserable. "I thought—" _they couldn't do anymore, they'd already taken Dean away and pumped Sam full of demon blood, what else was left?_ —"Where were you?"

"I dunno, some cell somewhere," Dean mumbles against Sam's shirt. "They fixed me up. Witch, I think. Thought they were gonna send me back here right after, but then they started, y'know, carving." He waves a hand nonchalantly, as if to encompass his whole body.

"Fuck," Sam breathes.

"Really doesn't make much sense to go through all the effort of healing me first," Dean says contemplatively.

"I'm sorry," Sam chokes out, unable to look Dean in the eye. "It's my fault, Dean, oh my god _it's my fault_. I didn't know, Dean, I swear, I thought you were dead—I didn't listen to them, I pissed them off, I didn't _know_ —"

"Hey, look at me," Dean says. He paws at Sam's face, his jaw. Sam closes his eyes, lets himself be guided. "I'm okay, Sammy. I'm okay. It's not your fault."

It's all too much. Sam feels like he's splintering into a million pieces, the weight of the last few days-weeks-months suddenly too much to bear. He lets his forehead rest against Dean's, tries to take a moment to get himself together, revel in Dean's presence. 

"Hey," Dean murmurs, soft in a way he rarely is, a side of him Sam's seeing more and more in this place, this place that's breaking Dean down as much as it is Sam. They're close, breathing in shared air, but Sam wants to be _closer_ , can barely believe Dean is here and alive—" _Hey_ ," Dean says again, and Sam lurches forward, closes the last few inches between them. 

Dean's lips taste salty, breath stale. Sam cradles Dean's face between his hands, careful, afraid to accidentally touch the cuts that cover Dean's body. Dean has no such compunction, lets his hands rover over Sam's shoulders, his back, his stomach. His fingers lightly touch the silver collar around Sam's neck, inquisitive and gentle, before he entwines his fingers in Sam's hair.

The kiss breaks and they both stay there for a second, frozen, lips brushing up against each other. Sam finally opens his eyes to look at Dean. "Oh," Dean says, eyes widening momentarily.

"What?" Sam asks, feeling off-balance and vulnerable. Dean's thumb swipes across Sam's cheekbones—they're wet, Sam realizes with a jolt. He hadn't even known he was crying.

"What'd they do to you, Sammy?" Dean breathes. He looks sad. 

Sam closes his eyes, turns his face away. 

"Hey, no," Dean says, stopping him with rough hands on his face. "C'mere." Dean pushes Sam where he wants him, weak but still bossy. Somehow they get themselves comfortable on the sorry-looking bedroll, lying close together in the small space. They huddle under the threadbare blanket, and Sam has a brief flash of rare nostalgia for childhood; him and Dean, hiding under the blanket and talking in hushed voices. After Sam had a nightmare, sometimes, or just waiting for Dad to come back home, spooked by the empty house on dark nights.

Dean kisses Sam again, soft and gentle. Sam curls in close like a starving man, gratitude and desire buzzing under his skin. Dean runs his hands down Sam's flanks, deft fingers checking for injury and soothing all at once, shushing Sam softly like he would a startled horse. 

"Sleep," Dean says. Somehow, Sam does. 

~~~

"Try again," Dean says.

"I am _trying_ ," Sam snaps back, scowling. His eyes gleam in the dark, mustard-yellow and preternatural.

It's unsettling, to say the least, makes his stomach twist and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Right now, Sam triggers every single finely-tuned hunter instinct Dean has. But it's _Sam_ , and Dean refuses to punish his brother for what other people have done to him. He meets Sam's yellow eyes head on, forcing himself to act unconcerned. He waves a hand impatiently.

"C'mon, Sam, one more time. Hit me."

Sam raises his right hand again, palm pointed directly at Dean's chest. Dean ignores the thumping of his heart and the alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind. Sam's face screws up in concentration, and finally something happens; Dean's buffeted by a warm gust of air, feels his feet leave the ground oh-so-briefly before he's dropped. He stumbles on the way down, scrabbles a bit trying to get his footing back.

Dean looks up, grinning, but stops short at the sight of Sam hunched over and clutching at his neck, red glow of the collar visible from the other side of the room. Dean rushes over and grabs Sam's wrists, pushing them out of the way. The skin around Sam's collar is red and blistered, and even from a few inches away Dean can feel heat radiating from the metal band.

"Fuck," Dean says, letting out a low whistle.

"This isn't gonna work," Sam says, voice tight. "I couldn't go after the guards either, it must be warded against humans or something."

"Or something," Dean mutters. "Fuck, Sam, this is above our paygrade." What kind of ward can control demon blood-infused power— _Azazel's_ power?

"Blood magic for sure," Sam says, responding to Dean's unspoken thought. He pulls away from Dean, runs his hands through his hair. He looks exhausted, thick blue-purple bags under his eyes standing out starkly on pale skin. "If I had access to the Men of Letters library, _maybe_. We talked to Rowena about blood curses on that hunt a few months ago, remember? She might know, if we could just get a message out somehow..."

"Yeah, if we could get a message out, we could do a hell of a lot more than talk to Rowena," Dean says, a sarcastic edge to his tone. "What about the guards? Maybe a bribe, or—" Dean startles at the look that comes over Sam's face at these words, the way Sam whips his head in Dean's direction and takes a step forward.

"The guards can't do anything," Sam says, practically spitting out the words. His eyes, which had started to fade back to their customary hazel color, flared yellow again in the dark cell. "I tried, Dean, when they took you—it won't work."

Dean blinks. He keeps his voice light when he asks, "Tried? What did you say? I'm a lot more convincing than you are, Sammy." Dean flashes a grin, hopes the light ribbing will settle Sam a bit, push him into the grooves of their well-worn roles, dumb remark provoking a long-suffering sigh. 

It's the wrong thing to say. Sam's abilities might be restrained, smothered by the curse hanging around his neck, but Dean can practically see the aura of power crackling around his silhouette. "It won't work," Sam snaps out. Snarls.

Dean holds his hands up, takes a careful step towards his brother. "Alright," he says. 

Sam's anger feels familiar, vaguely teenaged, moody and temperamental. It's the same type of rage he encountered when he'd pulled Sam away from Stanford after Dad went missing, frustration and righteousness threatening to boil over at any minute. Sam's mellowed out over the years, lost some of his sharp edges, but this is familiar. _It's Sam,_ Dean thinks, _it's Sam_ , and tries to ignore the memory those yellow eyes trigger in the back of his head ( _YED wearing Dad's face tearing open Dean's chest, blood bubbling out of his mouth_ ). 

"What happened, Sammy?" Dean steps in close, suppressing a grimace at the way the slight movement pulls at his wounds. Underneath it all, there's—something, on Sam's face, something painful and fragile.

Sam flinches. "It doesn't matter," he says.

It matters. _Of course_ it matters. But Dean files it away for later, knows as well as Sam when it's time to move on and focus on what they can change. Whatever happened with the guards? That's not something Dean can control, so he doesn't bother trying. He's learning a lot in this place. 

"Alright," Dean says. "Alright, Sammy. We'll figure something out. We always do, huh?"

Sam slumps like his strings have been cut, nods. "Yeah," he says, voice rough. "We always do."


	3. Chapter 3

As it turns out, it's not complicated at all.

The memory flashes before Sam's eyes, unbidden and in fragments. Rowena's cherry red lips curved into a smile, the soft tones of her voice; _"Blood magic wraps around the very_ essence _of a person, dearest. Only two things can break such a curse; death, or the mutilation of the soul."_

The werewolf tears into his chest, claws leaving bloody furrows after each swipe. The bite is quick, almost neatly placed on Sam's inner bicep, and over so quickly Sam hopes that it's unnoticeable to any onlookers. Sam staggers back, rallies the demon blood to _shove_ the werewolf away from him. The wolf slams against the wall with a whimper before slumping to the floor.

Sam freezes for a second, cold fear trickling down his back—is he dead? Sam stumbles and suddenly Dean's there, solid arms cradling him in a controlled fall to the dirt floor. "Knocked out cold," Dean mumbles in Sam's ear. "Fuck, Sam, he really got you. Fuck." Dean's hands are pressing firmly onto the wounds on Sam's chest. It's like being torn open all over again, and Sam bites his lip so hard he tastes fresh blood.

"Press here," Dean says, and he's gone, silver blade flashing in the harsh floodlights. 

They'd started sending them both into the area together. They make quite a team; always have, Sam knows, knew even when he wanted nothing to do with Dean or with hunting. They sent them in with two, four, even six monsters at a time, presumably just for the pleasure of watching the two brothers cut through them like butter. 

Sam watches through blurry eyes as Dean dispatches the last remaining werewolf quickly. It's a woman, young, and dies with a snarl on its face. 

The guards must escort Sam and Dean back to their cell, but Sam can't remember it, can barely stay conscious. He just barely remembers to cover the bite with the tattered edge of his shirt, staggering blindly in Dean's wake. 

In the cell, Sam shudders, eyes rolling back into his head. He feels like he's burning from the inside out, a deep visceral pain radiating from his core. The lilt of Rowena's voice echoes in his head, _mutilation of the soul,_ and he wonders how much mutilation can a soul take, pictures the shriveled dead thing that must be sitting in his chest. 

Dean's voice, soft and frantic, cuts through the fog. _"C'mon Sammy, don't leave me now, Sam, _Sam_ , please—"_

When Sam opens his eyes, the rush of power is dizzying. _It worked._ He says so, startling Dean out of his blank-faced reverie, and Dean grins. 

When Sam looks at him he can read the surface of his mind like the pages of a book, thoughts floating around his head, ripe and easy for picking. It's new, and Sam only gives himself a moment of gentle exploration ( _thank god, Sam_ , and _yellow-eyes_ and _let's get the fuck out of here_ ) before he pulls back. 

Sam reaches up to his neck where the collar sits. It's cold, dead, _powerless_. He shatters it into pieces with nothing more than a thought, lets the shards tumble to the floor. 

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Sam says, and Dean grins. 

~~~ 

They work their way down the cell halls in silence. The halls are filled with the sounds of death, shrieks and screams of creatures and guards alike. It's slow going, pausing in front of each cell to kill the monster inside before moving to the next one. They can't leave them there, at the mercy of whoever runs this place; but they can't exactly break them out and let them wreak havoc on innocent civilians. Sam feels a twinge of—something, guilt or empathy or pity, and tries to kill them as quickly and painlessly as he can.

The guards… he's not as worried about the guards. The ones he dispatches die violently, slammed into walls so hard their heads crack open and bleed all over the floor. Sam can see Dean's grimace out of the corner of his eye, the sidelong look he gives Sam before checking their bodies for weapons.

"Hey," Dean says, hesitating in front of the cell at the end of the hall. Sam turns away from the headless body of the vampire—ugly and deformed, head torn clean off its shoulders—and peers inside.

The werewolf who bit Sam is huddled in the furthest corner of the cell. He looks different now that the full moon has passed; like a kid, really, soft features making him look barely older than 18. He flinches back when he meets Sam's gaze, blood visibly draining out of his face as he presses his body into the rough-hewn stone wall behind him.

"Ready?" Dean asks, eyebrow raised. He dangles a set of keys from his right hand, unlocks the door at Sam's nod.

"Wait," the boy says desperately, holding his palms out as if he could keep them away. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bite you, don't kill me—"

"We're not gonna kill you," Dean says impatiently. "Well. As long as you don't try anything. You're coming with us."

The boy scoffs. He hugs his knees to his chest and hunches in as if he's trying to make himself smaller. "What do you want with me?"

"We need your blood to undo the turn," Sam says. "We're not going to kill you." _Right now_ , he mentally amends.

"O– okay?" The boy looks confused. He glances at Sam before his eyes slide away quickly to focus on Dean. Apparently, he's decided Dean is the least scary of the two. It's such a drastic change from their normal that Sam almost laughs.

"Promise?" the kid asks. He sounds so bizarrely young, naïve, like somehow a promise would be worth anything.

"I promise you will regret it if I have to drag you out of here," Dean says. The boy scurries forward, shoulders hunched. He doesn't protest as Dean cuffs him with silver manacles filched from one of the dead guards.

They continue through the hallways with their new charge, following like a silent ghost. They find the torture room, the room with the pentragram where Sam was pumped full of demon's blood. The room reeks, iron tang hanging thick in the air. The werewolf stops to throw up in the corner while Sam takes care of the few guards that ran inside the room to hide.

"Bingo," Dean says triumphantly. Sam turns to see him waving a thick glass and silver syringe in his hand. "Box full of 'em." He looks at the still-puking werewolf boy, grimaces. "Maybe in a bit." 

It takes them another hour to search the entire dungeon, but they don't find anything else. _Bossman wants him,_ the guard had said of Dean, but where was the headquarters? 

"There's gotta be an HQ somewhere," Sam says, voice harsh and frustrated. Dean nods in silent agreement. 

But in the end, there is no HQ, just rows and rows of cells arranged around the torture room in a circular pattern. There's no sign of who organized this, there's no _rhyme or reason_ , and Sam feels his frustration build as they go in circles and find absolutely nothing. The boy is looking more and more bewildered as they retrace their steps, eyeing the two of them suspiciously and flinching at sudden movements. 

"Let's just go, Dean," Sam says. "We'll find out who did this. Just – not today." Dean grunts angrily but doesn't argue. 

In a moment, the two of them are standing together in the grass. In the _grass_ , with sunlight beating down on their faces. Dean grins at Sam, genuine happiness on his face for the first time in months.

"I told you we were gonna make it, Sammy," Dean says, smugness with a trace of his old swagger to the words. Dean thinks, _fuck I thought we were gonna die in there,_ and Sam laughs. 

"Yeah." Sam grins back, steps forward mindlessly. They don't hug, just press close to each other, noses brushing together. 

They've never kissed in the daylight like this. It's Sam's most coveted and shameful secret, this desire of his, and he had hoped to die without it ever being revealed to Dean. 

But now they're here, and Dean _knows_ , is leaning towards Sam like a vine working its way towards sunlight, and Sam can't sense any hesitance or disgust, just pure _want_. 

Manacles clank loudly behind them as the werewolf climbs up the shaft to join them, disrupting the moment. Sam and Dean freeze, exchange a look, sudden happiness snuffed out as quickly as it came. 

"Hey, kid. C'mere." Dean pulls a silver syringe from his pocket and gestures impatiently, palm up. The boy reluctantly holds out his shackled hands, trembling minutely. It only takes a second, Dean's practiced hands quickly drawing up enough blood to fill the stolen syringe. 

"Can—can I go now?" The werewolf's voice is soft, timid. He fidgets as he waits for an answer, eyes flickering back and forth between the two of them. "You promised," he adds.

 _We really didn't_ , Sam thinks, glances over to see the sentiment reflected in Dean's face.

They could kill him—probably should. Less than 30 days from now the kid will be a menace, ready to rip the throat out of any person unfortunate enough to cross his path. But exhaustion blankets Sam's body like a physical weight, and he's tired of killing.

Sam steps forward, ignoring the boy's flinch away, and touches two fingers to the boy's temple. He doesn't know exactly what he's doing, just has a feeling, and for a moment nothing happens and he thinks he's going to feel real dumb if this doesn't work—but then the fragments of memories rush in.

_A full moon, bones crunching and warping beyond possibility, the sound of a voice saying his name, _Josh Peterson_ , _an old blue and white house on the end of Maplewood lane—__

_Sam yanks his hand back, gasping a little. He wipes his nose roughly on his sleeve and ignores the blood spotting the back of his hand. The boy—Josh—is blinking, looking stunned and confused, and Dean's frowning in concern._

_"We promised," Sam says finally. He expects a fight from Dean, but his brother just frowns a little more, shrugs. Hands over the keys easily enough._

_The werewolf stares at the two of them, mouth slack, like he hadn't _really_ expected them to follow through on their word. He stands still as Sam unlocks the cuffs, twitching a little when Sam's fingers brush the skin of his wrist._

_Once he's unlocked, Sam hands him both the cuffs and the keys together. After a moment of hesitation, the boy takes both, eyes flickering between Dean and Sam._

_"For your next full moon," Sam says. "And I recommend you use them. Because if either of us catch you killing or turning people, Josh Peterson"—Sam steps in the boy's personal space, towering over him, eyes hard—"you're gonna wish we had just killed you now."_

_"Yes," the boy says quickly, stumbling over his words. "Yes sir. I—I won't, I never have, I swear." His brown eyes are huge, big and pleading as he backs away from both of them like he's scared to look away._

_"Alright, kid," Dean says, mouth twisting in what might be discomfort, might be disgust. He waves the boy away. "Get out of here." He doesn't need to be told twice, stumbles away as soon as the words leave Dean's mouth._

_Dean's eyes track the boy's retreat, mouth pressed into a thin line. "We might have to go after him, one day."_

_"Sounds like a tomorrow problem," Sam quips. Sheer, giddy relief bubbles in his chest like champagne, bubbling over, making his body flush pleasantly warm._

_This isn't over, this is _nowhere near_ over. In a few days Sam will be shuddering in a cell of his own choosing, detoxing from demon blood, Dean pacing restlessly outside. They'll find themselves sleeping outside under the stars, cold but free, unable to bear the suffocating, oppressive walls of the bunker closing in on them. They'll endure long, sleepless nights, frustrated and angry as they try to track down who is responsible, who did this to them. _

_But right now, Sam can't bring himself to care. Relishes the feeling of being _outside_ —somewhere in the midwest, judging by the overpowering smell of manure, of loam and the damn wet of wheat. Listens to the birds twittering in the sky, the faint, tell-tale humm of a highway to the west. _

_Dean snorts a laugh, fists his hands in Sam's shirt and pulls him close. "Pretty sure that's _my _line," he says, and finally, _finally_ presses his lips to Sam's. The warm sun beats on the back of Sam's neck, familiar and new all at the same time, and he wraps his arm around Dean's neck, curls his fingers into Dean's hair. ___

___"Let's go home," he says, and they do._ _ _

___FIN_ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh this fic was SUCH a pain, it did not go easily lmao. if you made it this far lmk what you think!


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